by Jodi Picoult
“What, if any, is your relationship to Max Baxter?”
I think of the argument Zoe and I had last night. My relationship to this man is that, forever, we will be linked together through her. That there will be parts of her heart she’s already given to someone else.
“He’s my spouse’s ex-husband,” I say evenly. “He’s biologically related to the embryos. I don’t really know him; I only know what Zoe’s told me about him.”
“Are you willing to allow him to have contact with any child that might result?”
“If he wants to.”
Angela faces me directly. “Vanessa,” she says, “is there anything that prevents you from being considered a fit and proper person to have custody of a child?”
“Absolutely not,” I reply.
“Your witness,” Angela says, turning toward Wade Preston.
Today he is wearing an outfit that shouldn’t work—and believe me, if I’m making a fashion commentary, it must be truly hideous. His shirt is checkered, purple and white. His tie is striped, lilac and black. His black suit jacket is flecked with bits of gray and silver and purple. And yet what should look like a nasty eighties anachronism somehow looks, with his spray-on tan and his bling, like a GQ spread. “Ms. Shaw,” he begins. I actually look down to see if he’s left a trail of oil as he comes closer. “Does your employer know you’re a lesbian?”
I square my shoulders. If he wants to play hard, I’m ready.
After all—I’m wearing my lipstick.
“It’s nothing I’ve volunteered. Teachers don’t normally sit around the break room talking about their sex lives. But it’s nothing I hide, either.”
“Don’t you think parents have a right to know what sort of guidance their children are getting?” He absolutely sneers the word guidance.
“They don’t seem to be complaining.”
“Do you ever talk about sex with these teens?”
“If they bring it up. Some kids come to me because of relationship problems. Some of them have even disclosed to me that they might be gay.”
“So you’re recruiting these innocent teenagers to your lifestyle?” Preston says.
“Not at all. But I am offering them a safe place where they can talk when other people”—I pause for effect—“are not being particularly tolerant.”
“Ms. Shaw, you testified on direct examination that you believe you’re a fit and proper parent for a child, is that right?”
“Yes,” I say.
“You’re saying there’s nothing about you that suggests, for example, an inability to cope?”
“I don’t believe so . . .”
“I’d like to remind you that you’re under oath,” the lawyer says.
What the hell is he getting at?
“Isn’t it a fact that you were hospitalized for a week in 2003 in the Blackstone Hospital psychiatric ward?”
I go very still. “A relationship had ended. I voluntarily checked myself in for a week to deal with the stress. I was put on medication and have not had another episode like that.”
“So you had a nervous breakdown.”
I lick my lips and taste the wax of the cosmetics. “That’s an exaggeration. I was diagnosed with exhaustion.”
“Really? That’s all?”
I lift my chin. “Yes.”
“So it’s your testimony that you did not try to kill yourself?”
Zoe’s hand is pressed to her mouth. Hypocrite, she must be thinking, after last night.
Turning to Wade Preston, I meet his gaze. “Absolutely not.”
He holds out his hand, and Ben Benjamin leaps up from the plaintiff’s table to give him a file. “I’d like to have these marked for identification only,” Preston says, handing them to the clerk for a stamp and then giving a copy to Angela and another to me.
They are my medical records from Blackstone.
“Objection,” Angela says. “I’ve never seen this evidence before. I don’t even know how Mr. Preston could have legally obtained them, since they’re protected by HIPAA—”
“Ms. Moretti is welcome to follow along with her own copy,” Preston says.
“Your Honor, under our confidentiality statute, I should have received three weeks notice of this prior to the records being subpoenaed. Ms. Shaw is not even a party to this action. There’s no way these records should be admissible in this courtroom.”
“I’m not entering these records as evidence,” Preston says. “I’m just using them to impeach the witness who has testified falsely under oath. Since we are talking about a potential custodial parent, I think it’s critical to know this woman is not just a lesbian—she’s also a liar.”
“Objection!” Angela roars.
“If Ms. Moretti needs a brief recess to review the records, we’re perfectly willing to give her a few minutes—”
“I don’t need a recess, you windbag. I have no question in my mind that not only are these records irrelevant but that Mr. Preston obtained them through an illegal missive. He comes into this courtroom with unclean hands. I don’t know what they do in Louisiana, but here in Rhode Island we have laws to protect our citizens, and Ms. Shaw’s rights are being violated at this very moment.”
“Your Honor, if the witness would like to recant her testimony and admit that she did attempt suicide, I am happy to dismiss the records entirely,” Preston says.
“Enough.” The judge sighs. “I will allow the records in for identification purposes only. However, I’d like counsel to explain how he obtained them before we go any further.”
“They were pushed under the door of my hotel room,” he says. “God works in mysterious ways.”
I highly doubt that God was the one running the Xerox machine at Blackstone.
“Ms. Shaw, I’m going to ask you again. Did your suicide attempt lead to your stay at Blackstone Hospital in 2003?”
My face is flushed; I can feel my pulse hammering. “No.”
“So you accidentally swallowed a bottle of Tylenol?”
“I was depressed. I didn’t have a plan to kill myself. It was a long time ago, and I’m in a very different place now than I was back then. Frankly, I don’t understand why you’re even on this witch hunt.”
“Is it fair to say that you were upset eight years ago? In crisis?”
“Yes.”
“Something unexpected happened that rattled you to the point where you ended up hospitalized?”
I look down. “I guess.”
“Zoe Baxter has testified that she had cancer. Are you aware of that?”
“Yes, I am. But she’s healthy now.”
“Cancer has a nasty way of recurring, doesn’t it? Ms. Baxter could get cancer again, couldn’t she?”
“So could you,” I say.
Preferably in the next three minutes.
“This is a terrible thought,” Preston says, “but we do need to press through all possibilities here. Let’s say Ms. Baxter got cancer again. You’d be upset, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d be devastated.”
“To the point of another breakdown, Ms. Shaw? Another bottle of Tylenol?”
Angela stands again, objecting.
Wade Preston shakes his head and tsks. “In that case, Ms. Shaw,” he says, “who’s gonna take care of those poor children?”
As soon as I step down from the witness stand, the judge calls a recess. Zoe turns to the seat I’ve taken behind her in the gallery. We both stand; she wraps her arms around me. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.
I know she is thinking of Lucy, how I went above and beyond the call of a school counselor’s duty to find that girl something that would keep her tethered to this world instead of checking out of it. I know she’s wondering if I saw myself in her.
From the corner of my eye, I see a flash of purple. Wade Preston heads up the aisle. Gently I disengage myself from Zoe’s embrace. “I’ll be back.”
I follow Preston down the hallway, drawing into shadows as he glad-hands congrega
nts and gives sound bites to reporters. He whistles, too full of himself to even notice that he’s got a shadow. He turns a corner and pushes open the door to the men’s room.
I go in right after him.
“Mr. Preston,” I say.
He raises his brows. “Why, Ms. Shaw. I would think a person with your sort of lifestyle would be the last one to make the mistake of walking into the facility with the picture of a man on it.”
“You know, I’m an educator. And you, Mr. Preston, are sorely in need of an education.”
“Oh, you think so?”
“I do.” I quickly glance under the stall doors, but, fortunately, we are the only ones in the room. “First, homosexuality? It’s not a lifestyle. It’s who I happen to be. Second, I didn’t choose to be attracted to women. I just am. Did you make a choice to be attracted to women? Was it during puberty? When you graduated from high school? Was it a question on the SATs? No. Homosexuality isn’t a choice any more than heterosexuality is. And I know this because why on earth would anyone choose to be gay? Why would I want to put myself through all the bullying and name-calling and physical abuse I’ve faced? Why would I want to constantly be looked down at and stereotyped by people like you? Why would I willingly pick a lifestyle, as you call it, that’s such an uphill battle? I honestly cannot believe someone who has traveled the world as much as you have, Mr. Preston, could have his eyes so tightly shut.”
“Ms. Shaw.” He sighs. “I’ll keep you in my prayers.”
“That’s touching. But since I’m an atheist, it’s also irrelevant. In fact, I’d hope that you might consider reading up on homosexuality with a text that’s a little more current than the one you’ve been using—the Bible. There’s been a lot more literature written on the subject since five hundred A.D.”
“Are you finished yet? Because I came in here for a reason . . .”
“Not yet. There are a lot of things I’m not, Mr. Preston. I’m not a pedophile. I’m not a softball coach or a biker chick, any more than gay men are always hairstylists or florists or interior decorators. I’m not immoral. But you know what I am? Intelligent. Tolerant. Capable of parenting. Different from you, but not lesser,” I say. “People like me, we don’t need to be fixed. We need people like you to broaden your horizons.”
When I finish, I am sweating. Wade Preston is blissfullly, utterly silent.
“What’s the matter, Wade?” I ask. “Not used to getting beat up by a girl?”
He shrugs. “Say what you want, Ms. Shaw. You can even pee standing up if you like. But your balls, mark my words, are never gonna be bigger than mine.”
I hear him unzip his fly.
I cross my arms.
A standoff.
“Are you going to leave, Ms. Shaw?”
I shrug. “You won’t be the first dick I’ve run across in my life, Mr. Preston.”
With a quick indrawn breath, Wade Preston zips his pants again and storms out of the bathroom. I smile so wide it hurts, and then I turn on the faucet.
When a bailiff I’ve never seen before comes into the men’s room, he sees a strange, tall woman washing off her makeup in the sink, patting her face dry with cheap paper towels. “What?” I accuse when he stares at me, and I saunter out the door. After all, who’s he to say what’s normal?
Before Zoe’s mom testifies, she wants to talk to her glass of water.
“Ms. Weeks,” the judge says, “this isn’t a performance space. Can we please just get along with the trial?”
Dara faces him, still holding the glass in one hand. The pitcher that sits beside the witness stand is half full. “Don’t you know, Your Honor, that water can feel positive and negative energy?”
“I wasn’t aware that water could feel anything except wet,” he mutters.
“Dr. Masaru Emoto has done scientific experiments,” she says, huffy. “If human thoughts are directed at water before it’s frozen, the crystals will be either beautiful or ugly depending on whether the thoughts were positive or negative. So if you expose water to positive stimuli—like beautiful music, or pictures of people in love, or words of gratitude—and then freeze it and look under a microscope, you get ice crystals that are symmetrical. On the other hand, if you play a Hitler speech to your water or show pictures of murder victims or say I hate you and then freeze it, the crystals are jagged and distorted.” She looks up at him. “Our bodies are made up of more than sixty percent water. If positive thoughts can impact an eight-ounce glass of water, imagine the effect they might have on all of us.”
The judge rubs his hand down his face. “Ms. Moretti, I assume since this is your witness you don’t mind if she praises her water?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Preston?”
He shakes his head, dumbfounded. “Frankly, I don’t even know what to say.”
Dara sniffs. “All in all, that’s probably a real blessing from the water’s point of view.”
“You may proceed, Ms. Weeks,” the judge says.
Dara raises the glass. “Strength,” she says, her voice rich and full. “Wisdom. Tolerance. Justice.”
It should seem precious, wacky, New Age. Instead, it’s riveting. Who among us, no matter what we believe personally, would stand against those principles?
She tilts the glass and drinks every last drop. Then Dara glances at Judge O’Neill. “There. Was that really so bad?”
Angela walks toward the witness stand. She refills Dara’s glass—not out of habit but because she knows it will keep everyone thinking what words are being said in front of that water that might alter it, much the way having a toddler in the room acts as a deterrent for lewd conversation. “Can you state your name and address for the record?”
“Dara Weeks. I live at 5901 Renfrew Heights, Wilmington.”
“How old are you?”
Blanching, she looks at Angela. “I really have to tell you that?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Sixty-five. But I feel fifty.”
“How far away do you live from your daughter and Vanessa Shaw?”
“Ten minutes,” Dara says.
“Do you have any grandchildren?”
“Not yet. But . . .” She knocks the wood of the witness stand.
“I take it you’re looking forward to the prospect, then?”
“Are you kidding me? I’m going to be the best grandmother who ever lived.”
Angela crosses in front of the stand. “Ms. Weeks, do you know Vanessa Shaw?”
“I do. She’s married to my daughter.”
“What do you think of their relationship?”
“I think,” Dara says, “she makes my daughter very happy, and that’s what has always mattered most to me.”
“Has your daughter always been happy in her relationships?”
“No. She was miserable after the stillbirth, and during her divorce. Like a zombie. I’d go over to her place, and she’d still be wearing the same clothes I left her in the day before. She didn’t eat. She didn’t clean. She didn’t work. She didn’t play guitar. She just slept. Even when she was awake, she seemed to be sleeping.”
“When did that start to change for her?”
“She began to work with a student at Vanessa’s school. Gradually, she and Vanessa went to lunch, to movies, to art festivals and flea markets. I was just so glad Zoe had someone to talk to.”
“At some point did you learn that Zoe and Vanessa were more than just friends?”
Dara nods. “One day they came over and Zoe said she had something important to tell me. She was in love with Vanessa.”
“What was your reaction?”
“I was confused. I mean, I knew Vanessa had become her best friend—but now Zoe was telling me she wanted to move in with her and that she was a lesbian.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Like I’d been hit with a pickax.” Dara hesitates. “I don’t have anything against gay people, but I never thought of my daughter as gay. I thought ab
out the grandchildren I wouldn’t have, about what my friends would say behind my back. But I realized that I wasn’t upset because of who Zoe fell in love with. I was upset because, as a mother, I would never have picked this path for her. No parent wants her child to have to struggle her whole life against people with small minds.”
“How do you feel now about your daughter’s relationship?”
“All I can see, whenever I’m with her, is how happy Vanessa makes her. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. But without Romeo,” Dara adds. “And with a much happier ending.”
“Do you have any qualms about them raising children?”
“I couldn’t imagine a better home for a child.”
Angela turns. “Ms. Weeks, if it were up to you, would you rather see Zoe’s children parented by Max or Vanessa?”
“Objection,” Wade Preston says. “Speculative.”
“Now, now, Mr. Preston,” the judge replies. “Not in front of the water. I’m going to allow it.”
Dara looks over at Max, sitting at the plaintiff’s table. “That’s not my question to answer. But I can tell you this: Max walked away from my daughter.” She turns to me. “Vanessa,” she says, “won’t let go.”
After her testimony, Dara sits down in the seat I’ve saved beside me. She grips my hand. “How did I do?” she whispers.
“You were a pro,” I tell her, and it’s true. Wade Preston had nothing of merit to use during his cross-examination. It felt like he was spinning his wheels, grasping at straws.
“I practiced. I was up all night aligning my chakras.”
“And it shows,” I reply, although I have no idea what she’s talking about. I look at Dara—her magnetic bracelet, her medicine-bag pouch necklace, her healing crystals. Sometimes I wonder how Zoe grew up the way she did.
Then again, you could say the same thing about me.
“I wish my mom could have met you,” I whisper back to her, when what I really mean is, I wish my mother had had a heart even half as big as yours.
Dr. Anne Fourchette, the director of the fertility clinic, arrives with a milk crate full of files—Zoe’s and Max’s medical records, which have been copied for the lawyers and are handed out by the clerk of the court. Her silver hair brushes the collar of her black suit, and a pair of zebra-striped reading glasses hangs from a chain around her neck. “I’ve known the Baxters since 2005,” she says. “They began trying to have a baby back then.”
